Survivors Report Pregnant Captives Beaten, Children Starved, for Months. The Next Day, Equipping the Persecuted Moved in with Relief.
By Mike Odeh James
Esther Ayuba was two months pregnant, chained in a camp near Rijana, when she told her Fulani Ethnic Militia (FEM) captors she was expecting. The beatings worsened, she says.
“When I told them I was pregnant, they only intensified the beating,” Ayuba told TruthNigeria. “I discovered it during one of the beating sessions, when I felt a sharp pain in my stomach.”
Ayuba was one of eight residents of Angwan Aku, a farming settlement in Kajuru County, seized on July 12, 2026. Three were children seven or younger. All eight were held nearly three months before their release on Saturday, Oct. 10.
Their ordeal comes as Washington pressures Abuja over religious violence. The U.S. redesignated Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern on Oct. 31, 2025, and is now arming its military. Yet the first help these survivors received came from American donors.
Southern Kaduna, a chiefly Christian farming belt in Nigeria’s Middle Belt, has endured years of raids by Fulani terrorists. Equipping the Persecuted (ETP), a U.S.-based humanitarian NGO, estimated in September that one Christian is killed in Nigeria every 86 minutes.
TruthNigeria interviewed three of the eight survivors. It could not independently verify conditions inside the camps.
Midnight Raid
More than 20 armed men stormed Angwan Aku around midnight, Ayuba said. “My husband was not around, so they took me and some of our neighbors to the forest in Rijana.”
“At the camp, we were subjected to beating, hunger and slavery,” she alleged. “We washed clothes and plates and did other things for the Fulanis.”
She described the period as “torture, sleepless nights and constant hunger.” She returned weak, traumatized and needing urgent care.
Chained Like Animals
Martha Jonathan, kidnapped alongside Ayuba, said captives had no shelter. They slept in the open through sun, rain and darkness.
“Our hands and legs were chained. The iron cut deep into our flesh, and we slept on mud and stones,” Jonathan said.
Captors gave barely enough food to survive, she said. Beatings came daily with sticks, whips and gun butts used on chained women who could not fight back or run.
TruthNigeria observed scars on Jonathan’s arms and legs consistent with her account.
Their mothers allege captors deliberately withheld food from the three children throughout captivity. TruthNigeria is not naming the children.
The children returned with mosquito bites, scars and rashes across their legs, hands and stomachs, their mothers said.
Farmer Can No Longer Feed Herself
Dinatu John, another captive, said she lost full use of her right hand and one leg to torture.
“I used to be a farmer, but now I cannot move my right hand,” she told TruthNigeria. For a subsistence farmer, it is the loss of livelihood.
TruthNigeria correspondent investigation “Nigeria’s Hidden Gulag: Inside the Rijana Camps,” winner of first place in the 2026 HART Prize for Human Rights Journalism, documented a network of detention sites in these forests.
TruthNigeria called the Kaduna State Police Command for comment on the alleged camps and the Oct. 10 release. The command did not answer.
A Test for Washington
Deliberate starvation, torture and abduction of children are prohibited under international law. Child abduction is one of six grave violations against children monitored by the UN Security Council.
Washington and Abuja held Joint Working Group security talks on Aug. 12. On Sept. 10, a U.S. Air Force C-17 delivered military equipment to Nigerian Air Force locations in Lagos and Kainji under a Foreign Military Sales agreement.
In Congress, Rep. Riley Moore (R-W.Va.) and colleagues introduced the Nigeria Religious Freedom and Accountability Act of 2026, seeking visa bans and asset freezes, including against the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association.
Abuja disputes a single-religion framing. Information Minister Mohammed Idris has called it overly simplistic.
For Angwan Aku, the first help after nearly three months in chains came from an American charity.
On Oct. 11, a day after release, ETP gave victims cash and bags of rice and paid Ayuba’s medical bills, according to ETP and the survivors.
The three children received biscuits and milk, and Dinatu John received cash and rice, ETP said.
“ETP is ready to help Nigerian Christians who were victimized by terrorists. More help and funds are on the way,” said ETP Director Judd Saul.
Disclosure: TruthNigeria is the field reporting arm of ETP. The two organizations worked jointly to document these cases and deliver relief.
Filling the Gap
“Since March this year, over 500 men, women and children who were either kidnapped, rendered homeless or had limbs chopped have been positively affected by the Judd Saul-led ETP,” said Alipiri Ado, Chairman of the IDP Camp, Kajuru County.
Ado said, in his view, state and federal governments have done little for Kajuru’s victims. TruthNigeria could not independently verify his figures.
For survivors, freedom is only the beginning. Ayuba must carry a pregnancy through trauma and malnutrition. Three children must recover from months of hunger. John must live without the hand that fed her family.
The forest let them go. It has not let go of them.
Mike Odeh James is a Senior Reporter with TruthNigeria
